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New preschool apps create hands-on fun

From tinkering to travel, the newest preschool apps provide kids with fun ways to use touch to play in digital worlds. If you have preschoolers, you know touch is an important part of how they play. While

From tinkering to travel, the newest preschool apps provide kids with fun ways to use touch to play in digital worlds.

If you have preschoolers, you know touch is an important part of how they play. While mobile apps don't provide real 3D objects, they do offer unique hands-on activities that intrigue youngsters as they learn.

With these three new preschool apps, your kids can chase a gold coin through a zoo; hammer and drill to build virtual swing sets; and tinker with how to create their own monster.

This delightful zoo romp follows the path of a gold coin after little boy Billy drops it down the grate at the entrance to the zoo. Miraculously, the coin rolls, bounces and spins its way through 12 animal enclosures at the zoo.

The hands-on fun: This book app invites kids into the action by putting them in control of the coin's interactions with the animals. After listening to the rhyming story, kids use their fingers to move the coin. They bounce the coin to the seal, use it to rattle the turtles' shells and swish it into a baby kangaroo's pouch. These actions trigger the scenes to change as the coin to travels into another animal's enclosure until it serendipitously arrives at Billy's feet. The book app ends with Billy using the coin in a special way that will make kids want to read the book app over and over again.

Bonus Tip: For other top-rated preschool apps, including ones that play on Android, click here for a list.

Preschoolers wield hammers, saws and power tools in 'Sago Mini Toolbox,' a fun role-playing game about tinkering to build things.(Photo: Sago)

Budding builders buckle on their tool belts in this newest app from award-winning developer Sago Sago. By providing kids with eight realistic digital tools that include saws, wrenches, drills, hammers, needles and thread, scissors, air pumps and measuring tapes, kids become tinkerers and creators. They learn that building things involves many different steps.

The hands-on fun: These virtual tools are remarkably responsive to kids' touches. Tap the drill, and it starts spinning; and when you lift your finger, it immediately stops. As kids spin the wrench, they watch as the nut screws down the bolt. Likewise, using scissors to cut fabric by sliding your finger across the screen works so seamlessly that you feel that you are actually snipping the cloth. Each tool also creates a musical sound. So kids can not only use the tool to do work, they can also explore musical expression.

With 15 projects to explore, players feel a sense of accomplishment when their tinkering results in a finished project, such as a swing set, a go-kart, puppets and even a rocket ship.

Bonus Tip: Sago Sago is known for their series of preschool apps that put kids in control of exploring different settings. If your kids like this app, they will likely enjoy others in this series of apps; and those other, older apps are on Android. Click here for a list of Sago Sago's top-rated apps.

Children create a friendly monster of their choosing by swapping out body parts in "Monster Mingle," a creativity adventure app from Cowly Owl.(Photo: Cowly Owl)

By controlling an evolving monster, kids explore this zany world where monsters cavort. Starting with just a colorful body, kids add body parts to their monster by finding bubbles containing eyes, mouths, noses, beaks, horns, legs, arms, fins, wings and other body shapes. This vibrant world is full of other creatures who sing and gibber, islands that float and waters teeming with life.

The hands-on fun: Kids use their fingers to move their evolving monster. They can switch out body parts by simply tapping on any transparent bubble they encounter filled with a new part. This ease of switching parts and then experimenting with the result is what makes this app so much fun. If you direct your creature into the ocean, strategically placed bubbles containing fins appear, making it easier for your monster to swim. Likewise, if you want your monster to fly, the key is trying on wings so that your monster can take to the sky. This mingling of monster parts is a riot, and one that your children will want to explore over and over again.